Transcriber's note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the endof the text.
By
| First Published April | 1891 |
| Second Edition November | 1894 |
| Third Edition July | 1896 |
| Fourth Edition July | 1899 |
| Fifth Edition May | 1905 |
| Sixth Edition | 1906 |
The object of this volume is to collect, arrange, and examine some of theleading facts and forces in modern industrial life which have a directbearing upon Poverty, and to set in the light they afford some of thesuggested palliatives and remedies. Although much remains to be done inorder to establish on a scientific basis the study of "the condition ofthe people," it is possible that the brief setting forth of carefullyascertained facts and figures in this little book may be of some servicein furnishing a stimulus to the fuller systematic study of the importantsocial questions with which it deals.
The treatment is designed to be adapted to the focus of thecitizen-student who brings to his task not merely the intellectualinterest of the collector of knowledge, but the moral interest whichbelongs to one who is a part of all he sees, and a sharer in the socialresponsibility for the present and the future of industrial society.
For the statements of fact contained in these chapters I am largelyindebted to the valuable studies presented in the first volume of Mr.Charles Booth's Labour and Life of the People, a work which, whencompleted, will place the study of problems of poverty upon a solidscientific basis which has hitherto been wanting. A large portion of thisbook is engaged in relating the facts drawn from this and other sourcesto the leading industrial forces of the age.
In dealing with suggested remedies for poverty, I have selected certainrepresentative schemes which claim to possess a present practicalimportance, and endeavoured to set forth briefly some of the economicconsiderations which bear upon their competency to achieve their aim. Indoing this my object has been not to pronounce judgment, but rather todirect enquiry. Certain larger proposals of Land Nationalization and StateSocialism, etc., I have left untouched, partly because it was impossibleto deal, however briefly, even with the main issues involved in thesequestions, and partly because it seemed better to confine our enquiry tomeasures claiming a direct and present applicability.
In setting forth such facts as may give some measurement of the evils ofPoverty, no attempt is made to suppress the statement of extreme caseswhich rest on sufficient evidence, for the nature of industrial povertyand the forces at work are often most clearly discerned and most rightlymeasured by instances which mark the severest pressure. So likewise thereis no endeavour to exclude such human emotions as are "just, measured, andcontinuous," from the treatment of a subject where true feeling isconstantly required for a proper realization of the facts.
In conclusion, I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Mr. Llewellyn Smith,Mr. William Clarke, and other friends who have been kind enough to renderme valuable assistance in c